The Old English Peep Show by Peter Dickinson Page B

embarkation. Harvey Singleton carried me onto the boat and the General nursed me home, pumped me full of morphine, knew just what to do—astonishing man. But, yes, old Deak hanged himself, and I can’t think why. I hear he was a bit too keen on the ladies, and it might have been something to do with that. He managed it very efficiently, too—clean break, dead in a second.”
    â€œNo peculiar bruises, marks of that kind?”
    The Doctor ceased pacing the bungey lawn and turned a chill eye on him.
    â€œGreat Scott, no!” he said. “You’ll be asking me about stomach contents next.”
    â€œIf you don’t mind,” said Pibble.
    â€œI mind very much indeed,” said the Doctor slowly. “What sort of people do you think you’re dealing with? The Claverings aren’t here to provide you with your tuppeny-ha’penny sensation which you can peddle to your pals in Fleet Street. They’re, they’re … Old England!”
    â€œYes” said Pibble, “that’s just why. Suppose the question came up at the inquest. Unlikely, but just suppose. Isn’t it better for us to be able to say we looked, and there was nothing suspicious, than to say we wouldn’t dream of doing so? I’d prefer to go the whole hog and see that the question was asked. I’d make it clear that the investigation had throughout been thorough, normally thorough. Anyway, I’m afraid I must insist on a proper analysis. Let me tell you, Dr. Kirtle, that there’s far more nasty publicity in doubts and mysteries than there is in certainties.”
    â€œAll right, all right,” whispered the Doctor curtly. “You know more about this sort of thing than I do, I suppose. We’re damned suspicious down here, you’ll find. They’ll have to do the job in Southampton, of course, but I’ll lay it on. Anything else?”
    â€œWell, it’s a tiny point, but I’m bothered about Mr. Singleton trying to give him the kiss of life. He looked so very dead, and I’d have thought Mr. Singleton could have seen at a glance it was hopeless. You know him better than I do, but he doesn’t seem to me the kind of man to make a mistake like that.”
    Winter glazed the Doctor’s eye again.
    â€œHarvey Singleton,” he said, “had a good war. A very good war indeed. After the Raid he was parachuted into France three times. He was brave, clever, and a brilliant shot. No doubt he saw a lot of dead men, knifed, shot, blown up, garroted. But I doubt if he ever saw a man who’d had his neck broken by dropping three feet with a noose round his throat.”
    â€œNo doubt you’re right,” said Pibble, stiff with the knowledge that his name was now chiseled deep into the Doctor’s opinion as that of a complete tick. The Doctor’s boneheaded reverence for great names comforted him not at all. “It’s only that I’m paid to think of all the questions which anybody might ask.”
    â€œWell, let me tell you another thing. When Lady Clavering died, Herryngs near as a toucher went to pieces. I won’t go into the details. But it was Harvey Singleton who held it together, put the Claverings back on their feet. He gave up a very promising job with a merchant bank in the City to come and do it, and he owed them nothing, nothing. He wasn’t even married to Anty then. This place is his monument, almost as much as it is any of the Claverings’. Remember that.”
    â€œThank you, Doctor. I will.”
    Pibble turned to Sergeant Maxwell, who had dropped a tactful few paces behind as they’d walked along the broad belt of sward between the wall of the house and the drive; they’d come now, in fact, right around the Private Wing to its south face. The Adam-the-Gardener figure, whom he’d last seen spraying the plants in the far colonnade, was now sweeping the edge of the turf with slow, thoughtful strokes